Puzzles and Mysteries
There are a good number of puzzles and mysteries in the thread and in the OTC itself that remain unsolved. Why not jump in and try to shorten this list? Puzzles and Mysteries of the OTC 'Beanish (unsolved): '''The OTA has publicly forgiven us for not decoding the language puzzle he put his Time and effort into, saying that Linear A hasn't been solved yet either, but could we forgive ourselves if we give up on this OTQ? 'The Epilogue Sequence Algorithm (unsolved):' Large breakthroughs have been made towards the understanding of the epilogue sequence, but the underlying mechanics remain a mystery. There is the excellent overview by mscha here and a subsequent pattern discovery by hujackus explained on NP2389 and NP2395 that correctly predicted the 2016 sequences, and offers a prediction for 2017 as well. What happens in 2018 will be new information. Puzzles and Mysteries of the OTT 'the mr*bdex story (solved):' Beginning on NP 2205, it became apparent that something odd was happening to mrob27's OTT index. In a post on NP2205 mrob27 dropped a hint: "Anymolpy looking for something OTTish to do... ''could try to work out what's going on with the mr*bdex." The index, containing links to the first occurrence of every OTT "newword", now had many blinking words. Later the words became red and green, and later were (and still are) bold and italic. The pattern of bold/italic encodes a hidden message, which balthasar__s decoded as described in NP2212. The message periodically changes. The decoding was automated (see this description); and the mr*bdex (already automated) was programmed to broadcast new lines of text after the existing lines have been found by balthasar_s's bots. The successive lines of decoded text make up a collection of short stories, an OTTification of Stanisław Lem's Cyberiada now known as bOTTeriada. 'balthasarian BSTA shenanigans (partly solved):' As of NP 2534, balthasar_s is up to something. In a post on NP2536 balthasar wrote, "Additionally, while the chronotransponder looked like it could be related, It was related to BFTF. And this here is not a BFTF. But there is another kind of relationship. The new interfaces are kind of what the chronotransponder and the object generator were for bftf." There have been a number of interesting, and possibly cryptic post subjects written by balthasar: *'d' on NP2510 *'how the' on NP2511 This post has the first mention of bsta, saying: "Yesterday evening I secretly made a bsta test page to determine the correct html for the page layout. The temporary title started with "Be the". And today thunk makes a post with the title "Be the dragmolp". And in this post writes about wikiLEAKS and moonbase servers. Did thunk find out something? :shock: How did you" *'1.5' on NP2520 a post where balthasar says he has been drawing, linking this image, and also notes, "I should do this soon because a deadline is coming. Everything must be ready before this year ends!" *'helo wordl!' on NP2521 *':' on NP2522 in which balthasar says, "In the recent times I'm creating something to notice. But this will need some more time." *'Two words, please.' on NP2523 which mentioned bsta again in the context of making good backups, and was where we were most likely supposed to discover Two Words. *'But not just any words. There are some rules limiting your choice.' on NP2524 which discusses internal/external IP addresses and includes this manip. *'What has happenned will not unhappen.' on NP2526 where balthasar notes that trolls have found Two Words before OTTers (oh, the shame!) and also points out: "ETA: There is still one unclosed time loop in BFTF: frame 251, and 330 - 340. As far as I know this message (from the future) hasn't been sent yet." *'what a coincidence' on NP2530 which acknowledges and explains Two Words, and ends with "I also had other reasons for creating this interface. They will be more clear later in the future." *'One of the' on NP 2530 mentions kxa's connection to Two Words. *'Discoverers' on NP2531 discusses the map-based LARPish game Balthasar has played with his sisters and friends. *'the island' on NP2531 further discusses a game of Discoverers with his little sister *'before' on NP2532 asks about the 2words interface. *'something is no yes on NP2532 responds to ggh's attempt to use the chronotransponder, using two images that also reveal information about BSTA and Coincidence in the background. The first digit of the Coincidence seer ID (8) is visible, along with the first 4 digits of the public key (Oad5). There is a tab for "bstatexts" and a browser tab titled, "Wait, ... * BSTA * Bicy..." *'something is not playing' on NP 2533 includes a link to squarewaves playing Polonaise in G Minor BWV Anh 119 and a detailed explanation of time loop in response to ggh's primitive attempt to use the chronotransponder. *'If I said it can't be done, should you believe me?' on NP2534 includes th hint "Pay attention to attachments." and also discusses som issues in programming music. *'and post titles too?' on NP2534 follows with a detailed explanation (including attached code) of the balthasarian music programming language. *'This is what happens when GrapeChannel' popes NP2535 and addresses ED's current project, including a screenshot that repeats the line, "So trying to get information from the future this way will usually3 also not work." *'x2 combo' on 2535 gives hints to reveal that the coincidence server ID is 80236, by saying "You already have the first digit. The second one is empty. And the last three? two digits combined give you the last one (what a coincidence!) and (what a coincidence x2 combo!) they are for some reason related to my birthday." *'x6 combo' on NP2536 includes a response to ggh's question about whether any of the six buttons had been pushed: "No. But don't worry about the number. All 6 are next to each other in a nice row. (In a previous post, balthasar had explained that there are six buttons to be pushed. *'It's the part where events finally start taking place.' on NP2537 explains why the words, "It's happeninh" briefly appeared in balthasar's signature, and also why balthasar chose to answer on the OTT questions that were directed to him within Coincidence. 'Find-the-OTTers (partly solved)' by ggh has never been exhaustively completed, though more than half of the OTTers and OTTerphrenalia represented have been found at various Times. The full-size image can be found here at chirpingmustard. This map-grid-style version can be used for describing the locations of found OTTishness. Spoiler Alert! Found items are listed inside the collapsed section below. Grid coordinates are also within, but written in white (highlight to view). 12obin U,14 adnapemit K,15 Angelastic F,11 azule O-P,9 and G,13 (cupcakes) balthasar_s K-L,9-10 BlitzGirl T-U,9-10 BlueCrab E,8 buffygirl K,9 ChronosDragon O,3 Dracomax W,10 DrSamCarter R-S,6 EarthlingOnMars U-V,6 and V,14 edfel V,5 edo A,7 Eternal Density L-M,14 ergman D,11-12 Exodies E,13 Febrion P,11 Flado G-H,8-9 gingercat S,7-8 (other kittens nearby) Gmalivuk X,6-7 GnomeAnne (trebchet) K,13 (GnomeAnne was not yet active in the OTT) Hal9000 L,12 Helper C,14 HES E,12-13 HiggsBoson Z,1 jimbobmacdoodle W,11-12 jjjdavidson D,13 jovialbard O,13 karhell U,8 Kieryn O,2 Latent22 (?) Y,9-10 Lawsome F-G,7-8 Link C,11-12 lmjb1964 L-M,8-9 Micritt Q,11 Moriarity X,2 NeilBoekend I,3 NoMouse R-S,11 moody7277 P,13-14 mscha E,4 Neil_Boekend I,3-4 pelrigg M-N,6 Pfhorrest H,5 pikrass U,8-9 SBN Z,6 SecondTalon L,8 SilentTimer X-Y,14 slinches M,12 StormAngel Sustainabilizer A,11-12 svenman V,7 taixzo J,11 Tatiana M,11 TheMinim A,3 tman2nd J,1 waveney M,6 xpatiate X,9 yappo I,14 baobab (wowtree) A,7 grapevines Z,9-10 ketchup and mustard E,13 otter C,8 metal molpy R,13 MyFavoritePony Friendship is Magic U,4 NewPixBot T,3 redundakitties F,13 and T-U,9 scrumptious donuts O,6 terrain like the OTC map (see World of Time) trebuchet K,13 World of Time A,13 wowtree (see baobab) Puzzles and Mysteries of TAT 't1i flora and fauna (partly solved):' Much of the flora and fauna of t1i could be identified once the location was known, but many plant and bird species remain a mystery. There will be images of these added below. 'An addition to Rosetta's desk in t1i (unsolved):' What is the object on Rosetta's desk in this frame? It was ONGed by NewPixbot on NP2073 and pointed out by SilentTimer on NP2075 'Mysteries of t-1 (mostly solved):' This section will discuss t-1, which began ONGing on NP2369. * The origin of the frames, i.e. the identity of the "mystery author". * The existence of a second colour frame, hidden within each monochrome frame; and how to reveal it. * The identity of the tree in the early (monochrome) frames of t-1. * How to read the text in t-1´s colour frames (which led to the identification of the mystery author). * The place and time of the events depicted in the monochrome frames. * The place and time of the events depicted in the colour frames.